Court backs discipline of now-retired attorney

Published 4:39 am, Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The Illinois Supreme Court has upheld the disciplinary actions taken against a now-retired Jacksonville attorney over violations of the state ethics law.

G. Ronald Kesinger was suspended for one year and until further order of the court, the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission said Tuesday. Kesinger retired last April before an interim suspension was to begin June 1.

The commission said Kesinger borrowed $26,000 from an elderly client while he was representing her in a probate matter, bought another client’s home at a foreclosure sale while he was representing that client in the foreclosure case, and falsely represented his financial condition in a loan transaction with a bank.

Kesinger was unavailable Tuesday for comment.

In January 2016, Kesinger admitted to one of the allegations and said, at the time, that he planned to challenge two of the findings.

A report, formed from a complaint filed in 2012, claimed three acts of misconduct, the first of which alleged Kesinger entered into a transaction with a client without the client providing informed written consent about the transaction.

Kesinger said he had intended to buy a house for his daughter and anticipated receiving money from a settlement for the down-payment. The settlement was delayed, however, so Kesinger sought a loan from a longtime friend, who happened to be a former client.

“I had failed to remember that she was a client, too,” Kesinger told the Journal-Courier in 2016. “I should have gotten a letter from her waiving any conflict of interest.”

The second allegation contended that Kesinger had engaged in dishonesty and deceit by signing a loan application that contained false, incomplete and misleading information. The report maintained that Kesinger was asked in the documents he signed for the loan whether “any of the down-payment [was] borrowed,” to which he answered no. It also claimed that he did not fully disclose that he owed a large amount of money.

Kesinger said the amount of the money borrowed would be balanced out by the increase in his total net worth and that because he was not the one who was to live in the house, he was not familiar with the documentation.

The commission report also claimed that Kesinger had bought the house of a client while he was representing the person in the same foreclosure proceeding. Kesinger said he was not representing the client at the time he bought the property for $60,000.

“In this case, the respondent has engaged in a pattern of serious misconduct involving his clients,” the report said. “Based upon the evidence, including … testimony, we find that [he] neither understands nor accepts the need to comply with the ethical rules of the legal profession. He simply has not gotten the message by being previously disciplined, that his misconduct will not be tolerated.”

Greg Olson can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1224, or on Twitter @JCNews_Greg.